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CNN This Morning

Pause Ends, Israel Resumes Gaza Military Operations; Soon, House to Vote on Whether to Expel Rep. George Santos (R-NY); Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) Debates Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) as Florida Governor Campaigns for President. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 01, 2023 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tackling all manner of policy in an often heated debate.

[07:00:03]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gavin Newsom did exactly what a surrogate is supposed to do.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): You almost have to try to mess California up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But I don't think it really gets you much with Republican primary voters.

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): Neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: A good Friday morning, everyone. And we are following breaking news this morning.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: The truce between Israel and Hamas is now over. This is a live look at Gaza this morning. We have been seeing huge plumes of dark smoke after the week-long pause ended at midnight Eastern Time. The Hamas-controlled ministry of health says Israeli strikes have already killed at least 32 people in Gaza this morning.

An eyewitness tells CNN, trucks with that desperately needed humanitarian aid at this moment have stopped going into Gaza. Israel is accusing Hamas of breaking the truce by firing rockets near on communities near the Gaza strip.

MATTINGLY: So, the big question this morning, what happens now? This is a conflict, a region, a world at an inflection point. Negotiations, they are still technically ongoing, according to the Foreign Ministry of Qatar. But whether or not they can actually reach any type of resolution, whether or not they're really engaged in a fulsome manner, it's unclear at this moment. The stakes could not be higher. What about the remaining hostages? That, of course, is a significant question across the world. Israel says 137 are still believed to be in Gaza. A senior U.S. official tells me before the truce fell apart, Hamas claimed it did not have any more women or children hostages to exchange. That's been critical to the deal up to this point. Israel says that is not true at all. The official tells me Hamas did not submit a list of hostages to release last night, which they had been doing nightly up to that point.

What happens now to the civilians in Gaza? The Biden administration pressing Israel to protect innocent civilians. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he told Israeli leaders the massive loss of life we saw in Northern Gaza cannot be repeated in the south.

We start with CNN's Oren Liebermann who's live for us in Tel Aviv. Oren, the operations began almost immediately. We have seen strikes, we've seen the smoke rising over Gaza, we've also seen leaflets being dropped warning people in the south that they are in a conflict zone. What do we know?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Phil, this is starting to look very much like the war we have known to this point before the course of the past seven days. Both Israel and Hamas said they were ready for fighting to resume if the truce fell apart or wasn't continued, and that's exactly what we saw happen.

One of the earliest indications over the course of the past seven days that there might be another 24 hours of a pause in the fighting was Israel acknowledging it had received a list of the next day's hostages to be released. We did not see that last night. And we saw the fighting resume this morning.

Israel carrying out punishing strikes. We have heard artillery strikes. We have seen airstrikes being carried out across Gaza, including in Southern Gaza, which is where Israel told Gazans in the northern part of the strip to evacuate to.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised the issue of civilian casualties while he was here meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the war cabinet. And he said Israel has to have a plan in place to avoid civilian casualties before it moves into the second phase of this war, which, frankly, may have just started here.

We have seen the IDF dropping leaflets in parts of Southern Gaza that actually has a Q.R. code on it. It takes you to a map of Gaza with the strip broken up into a lot of little parcels. So, it seems this may be part of Israel's plan to avoid civilian casualties, being able to tell specific little areas through the internet to evacuate to other areas so they can target that parcel of land.

Of course, one of the challenges here is that Gaza has been without internet connectivity for certain parts of this war. So, it's not clear how this would get to everybody who needs to know it. It's also unclear if this is the entire plan or if there are more steps to try to protect civilians, Phil and Poppy. HARLOW: What about the negotiations in terms it of the pace they're going at? Obviously, they were around the clock in the seven-day truce. What about now? Does it continue at that clip?

LIEBERMANN: It certainly continues. But whether it's possible to get to another truce and how long it would take to get there, that remains an open question after negotiations fell apart to continue the current truce.

It is worth remembering that they got to this current pause in the fighting during the war itself. So, they have shown that they are able to carry out negotiations. Not only Israel and Hamas, but also Qatar, of course, being the key mediator here, Egypt and the United States.

The question, again, how long does it take to find some other framework? Israel accused Hamas of not living up to the bargain by not providing a list of women and children that would be able to come out during another 24 hours of a pause in the fighting.

Meanwhile, Hamas accused Israel of rejecting any and all offers to continue the truce, saying they were ready to negotiate the release of elderly men, as well as soldiers, men and women, for a longer pause in the fighting. Israel has made clear and Blinken acknowledged when he was here, that when the pause ends, the fighting will very much resume.

[07:05:03]

Blinken also said humanitarian aid needs to continue to go into Gaza, but according to an eyewitness at the Rafah crossing, there are trucks that have been inspected but are not going in today. so it's unclear if humanitarian aid will go in at all during the resumption of fighting.

HARLOW: And do you know why they're not going in, Oren? Because last we heard from the IDF, and they're going to join us in the next hour, but last night, late last night, they said on CNN, they had no reason to believe that that humanitarian aid would stop. Why are these inspected trucks this morning not going in?

LIEBERMANN: We'll have to double check. Part of the humanitarian aid was part of the deal. The deal has now fallen apart. It could be a simple delay. It could be issues with the Rafah crossing itself. But according to an eyewitness there, the trucks, even those that have been inspected, have not gone in.

We have seen hundreds of trucks lined up there. And it is a key point, they should be going in even now, and that's something the U.S. was very much pressing for.

MATTINGLY: Unequivocal from the Secretary of State, Oren Lieberman. Thank you.

HARLOW: Also this, hostage negotiations, as you just heard from Oren, they are continuing, even though the truce is over. Hamas released ten more hostages in the final hours of the truce. And among those hostages, French-Israeli Mia Schem. See her here. That's her right before she was released. And then we're going to show you here reuniting with her mother.

The 21-year-old was kidnapped from the Nova Music Festival during the October 7th terror attacks and was seen in that first hostage video, released by Hamas, her arm being bandaged. And this is the moment that Mia's mother learned her daughter was being released. You see her getting that phone call there and just breaking down in tears.

Now, Mia is reunited with her family. She is being treated at an Israeli hospital.

Meantime, Israel says it is still assessing Hamas' claim that the youngest hostage, a ten-month-old baby with his mother and brother, were killed because of an Israeli airstrike, that is what Hamas is claiming. Israel is doing an assessment.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond joins us live from Ashkelon, Israel.

Jeremy, Hamas released a video of Yarden Bibas blaming Israel for the death of his children and his wife. When they were taken, they were taken separately, so he has been held separately. Have we heard anything from the IDF to confirm or deny that?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this video follows a claim by Hamas earlier this week that those three members of the Bibas family, Shiri, the mother, ten-month-old Kfir and four-year-old Ariel were killed in an Israeli airstrike. That has yet to be confirmed by the IDF or by anyone else for that matter.

And in this video, you hear the father, Yarden Bibas, effectively blaming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He is visibly distraught in this video and very likely under duress, which is why we are not airing that video.

The Israeli military, for its part, calls this psychological terror. They say that it was a cruel and difficult footage of the father of this family.

Now, interestingly, Hamas has said that they offered to return the bodies of Shiri, Kfir and Ariel as part of this hostage framework. But, again, they have yet to offer any concrete proof that they are, in fact, dead. But for the family, the Bibas family, just extraordinarily difficult to be witnessing all this without any clear confirmation.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Jeremy, we've also been seeing the videos of hostages, we just showed one reuniting with their families. You spoke to one. What did they say?

DIAMOND: I did. The Avigdori family, I met one of the uncle and the father a couple of weeks ago and I've been closely following their story. Yesterday, I had an opportunity to actually visit their home. I actually was able to meet Sharon and Noam who were recently returned off-camera. They did not want to be interviewed, but their father, Hen, talked to me about his 50-day journey fighting for their return and the ways in which they are now trying to get back to normal.

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DIAMOND (voice over): Hen Avigdori waited 50 days for this moment, embracing his wife and 12-year-old daughter, now free from Hamas captivity.

HEN AVIGDORI, WIFE AND DAUGHTER KIDNAPPED BY HAMAS: I can easily say it was the happiest moment of my life. The depth and the aptitude of the happiness and the emotion was almost unbearable, in a good way.

DIAMOND: Waking up the next day brought a new flood of emotions.

H. AVIGDORI: And I was the first one to wake up, and I just wake up and counted, one wife, two kids. And it was so -- it's supposed to be obvious that you wake up alongside with your family. But for me, it wasn't obvious for the last 50 days.

DIAMOND: Tell us how they're doing, Sharon and Noam.

H. AVIGDORI: I didn't see anything that is abnormal to this point.

[07:10:03]

They're sleeping well, they're eating well, they're making -- they're laughing a lot. Most of the humor has come from Noam, actually. She's giving me a hard time. She's busting my ass with the humor all the time. You are too old. You are not updated. You don't know fashion, you don't know anything.

DIAMOND: For now, the Avigdori family isn't sharing much about Sharon and Noam's captivity.

H. AVIGDORI: They tell me a lot, I can share nothing. This is a matter of privacy and national security.

DIAMOND: Or the moment they were kidnapped from Kibbutz Be'eri.

Until a few days ago, you didn't know exactly what happened today. What have they told you about that moment? It must have been absolutely terrifying.

H. AVIGDORI: It was absolutely terrifying. And, again, I don't speak about what happened to them.

DIAMOND: Avigdori did share that his wife and daughter were held alongside four other relatives, where Noam took on the role of big sister to three-year-old Yahel (ph) and eight-year-old Naveh (ph).

H. AVIGDORI: She is kind of a surrogate-owned sister for them. And she kept this job all during her captivity. And now the girls are at home. They're adjusting slowly but surely.

DIAMOND: For Hen's wife, that also means fresh grief.

H. AVIGDORI: Her brother was killed on the 7th of October. She didn't knew what happened. She took it well. It will take time.

DIAMOND: They are also adjusting to this, realizing that people across Israel know their faces and their stories.

Noam's brother, meanwhile, is savoring the little moments.

OMER AVIGDORI, MOTHER AND SISTER KIDNAPPED BY HAMAS: It's like when we eat dinner and my mom brings like a bunch of food that most of us won't eat, but she brings it anyway, like little things that you didn't realize how much we miss them until they actually happen again.

DIAMOND: Those little moments followed seven weeks of relentless advocacy. But even with his wife and daughter home, Hen Avigdori says his work isn't done yet.

H. AVIGDORI: Because I tasted the happy end, I know that my country should do anything to give this experience to all the other members of the kidnappee and as soon as possible.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DIAMOND (on camera): And Hen's commitment to keep fighting for the Avigdori family -- for other hostages, rather, really struck me. You know, he has gotten those dearest to him back, and yet he said that the other hostage families have become like his brothers and sisters. And he is going to continue to fight, he said, until all of them get their loved ones back. Phil, Poppy?

MATTINGLY: Jeremy Diamond, great piece. Thank you.

Well, in just a few hours, George Santos could be just the third elected lawmaker since the civil war to be kicked out of the House by his peers. It is going to be a close vote. How he's defending himself, that's next.

HARLOW: And the debate last night between Florida Governor and Republican Presidential Candidate Ron DeSantis and California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom where President Biden was top of mind.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DESANTIS: He should not be running. He is not up to the job, and it is dangerous for this country.

NEWSOM: Well, I'll take Joe Biden at 100 versus Ron DeSantis any day of the week at any age.

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[07:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. GEORGE SANTOS (R-NY): If I leave, they win. If I leave, the bullies take place. This is bullying.

I will be filing a slew of complaints in the coming hours of today and tomorrow to make sure that we keep the playing field even.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: That, of course, was Republican Congressman George Santos' defense yesterday lashing out, refusing to step down ahead of a vote on whether to expel him from Congress. That vote scheduled for just a few hours from now. On top of 23 criminal charges, a House Ethics Committee report, has also accused him of wrongdoing, including deceiving donors, stealing from his own campaign and, quote, fraudulently exploiting every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit.

Joining us now, CNN Political Commentator and CNN Host Michael Smerconish.

I mean, other than that, you know, there's not a lot of merit in what's going on, Michael. This is so clownish to some degree, and I think we make light of it with good reason, given what's in a lot of that report. But stepping back a little bit, this is something that just doesn't happen very often at all, and it's never happened before for somebody who hasn't been convicted of federal crimes. The bigger picture here, is there one?

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think there probably is Phil. By the way, as a trial lawyer, I can tell you that when you're arguing a case, if the facts are on your side, you argue the facts. And if the facts are not on your side, you argue the process.

And all of the arguments advanced for Santos, including by Santos yesterday, were about process. Like nobody wanted to mix it up and talk about any of the allegations that are hanging against him. I thought that the funniest best line of the day was when Matt Gaetz stood and said, I rise not in defense of George Santos, whoever he is, like nobody wants to try and defend him on the merits.

To your question of the bigger picture, well, there is a bigger picture question here. It's one of due process, again, arguing process, and the idea of whether the voters in his New York district ought to ultimately be the ones to throw him out, and I'm convinced that they would, or should it be the Congress? Like what kind of a precedent are we setting if someone who hasn't been convicted, because the two that you referenced since the civil war were both convicted in a criminal process? So, do we really want to open the door now to say, even without a conviction, you're out?

HARLOW: I think that's a fair question. It's an important question. And that's -- you're right, Michael, what the Republican, those who are defending him, they're Republican -- they're defending him on those grounds.

[07:20:03] Can we talk about the debate last night, though, between Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom? You had a prediction. Tell people your prediction, I know it, tell our viewers your prediction, and then what actually we saw happened.

SMERCONISH: I think it came true. I predicted that Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis would win the debate and that Nikki Haley and Kamala Harris would lose the debate, and I think that's the net effect of it.

I think each of them -- first of all, I think it's a Rorschach test. Like whoever won, whatever that means, it depends on whether you suit up in your blue or your red armor. But each of them were able to elevate their game and elevate their status as a future within their party.

Do I think that it really moved the needle for DeSantis against Nikki Haley? Probably not, but you can't now talk about the future of the Democratic Party and an heir apparent to Joe Biden without talking about Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris and then everybody else.

And if I could say one other thing, Poppy, I have long wanted to imitate -- I've long wanted to imitate the NCAA March Madness. You can picture the brackets, right, your office pool. Why don't we see more candidates paired against one another? Why can't we see Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis without Vivek Ramaswamy, without Chris Christie? I mean, instead of -- I remember being at the Reagan Library in 2016, there were 15 people on the stage. They had to break it up into two. Give me head-to-head matchups. And that's when we can really see what people can do.

HARLOW: We can do it. I mean, I'm sure CNN --

MATTINGLY: You know some people in T.V?

HARLOW: Yes, media organization. Yes, but this took a lot, a lot, a lot of, many months of negotiating for this one to happen.

But I agree with you, Michael. Seeing head-to-head with time makes a big difference.

MATTINGLY: I think absolutely, I think our team who does these types of things would absolutely do it. Candidates need to be willing to do it to some degree. I'd also note our team is the best team by far.

I do want to ask you Michael, I like the head-to-head. I thought it was, I thought both were at a high level throughout the course of the night. But I also was struck by the prepared quippiness, including this one. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEWSOM: There are profound differences tonight, and I look forward to engaging them, but there's one thing in closing that we have in common, is neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MATTINGLY: It was clever. But to your point, you know, I talked to Republicans last night, they thought DeSantis crushed it or crushed Newsom at least. You talked to Democrats, you know, Biden campaign officials were saying, I hope you're watching this, we're enjoying it a lot. What is the takeaway here on net for the actual presidential race?

SMERCONISH: Well, I'm not sure that there is one so long as Donald Trump continues his trajectory and so long as President Biden follows through and does continue to run for re-election.

You both know all the speculation about about whether, you know, Biden in the end continues forward. Donald Trump certainly will continue forward because he's got no choice facing those four criminal indictments. But things could change.

And I have to say something as we're now beyond Thanksgiving and headed toward the holiday season. Although the strong likelihood is that it's a Trump-Biden matchup, I would not be floored if in the end, neither of them is the candidate of their party. So, file that away. You can play the tape a year from now and embarrass me and say, hey, Michael, it wasn't quite a prediction, but you did float that notion.

HARLOW: But can we play that out, Michael? Take that -- okay, play that out. They're not the candidates. Who's the candidate?

SMERCONISH: So, I guess, Poppy, on the Republican side of the aisle, you know, it all rests in the hands of my law school classmate, Judge Tanya Chutkan. Because if Donald Trump is on trial in March, if he's on trial next March, and if there's a conviction, then I think it's a total game changer. So, there are a lot of intangibles. How about if I leave it like that?

HARLOW: Okay, fair enough. Come back soon, Michael. Thank you, thank you. We'll watch this weekend.

SMERCONISH: See you guys.

HARLOW: All right.

SMERCONISH: Thanks.

MATTINGLY: Well, we're learning more about what the child hostages released by Hamas went through in captivity, from the lack of food to the fear of making too much noise. A trauma expert is helping those children joins us, next.

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[07:25:00]

HARLOW: Welcome back. There will be no joyful videos of child hostages reunited with their families today because the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas is over. But for those kids who are back with their loved ones, there is a stark contrast between those happy hugs, those joyful moments that we saw, and the trauma that they endured being held by Hamas and Gaza.

These are teenage brothers, Or and Yagil Yaakov, reuniting with their family members after being released. But their uncle revealed they endured terrible treatment. He says Hamas terrorists held the boys' legs against motorcycle exhaust pipes and burnt them.

And take a look at this. This is 12-year-old Eitan Yahalomi getting a big hug from his mother, but before that embrace, his aunt says that he was forced to watch horrific footage of the October 7 terror attack. And every time children cried, they were, quote, threatened with a weapon to shut up.

Also this, you'll remember the big smiles there from four-year-old Abigail Edan after she was released, but her aunt told The New York Times, this American-Israeli toddler shared one piece of pita bread per day with four other captives and did not have a shower or a bath during her 50 days in captivity.

And this is 17-year-old Ofir Engel running to get a hug from his family on Wednesday. The joy is palpable, but while he was being held, his family says he was told to keep quiet.

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YAEL ENGEL LICHI, AUNT OF FREED HOSTAGE OFIR ENGEL: They told him to whisper all the time because they told him that if he will talk loudly, the Israeli army will bomb this house and kill him. So, my brother told me that this morning after he slept a few hours, he wake up and he just didn't speak loudly.

[07:30:04]

He just whispered. And I told him again and again, it's okay, you can talk normally.